The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friend,

Today we are given the opportunity to consider what precious gifts we have been given with the faculties of hearing and speech.

All too often we take these precious gifts for granted. And all too often we forget why God has given us these gifts. All that God has given us has been given to us for one ultimate goal _ to spend eternity with Him. We learned in the first few pages of our Catechism why God has made us. "To know, love, and serve Him in this world so that we can be happy with Him in eternity." Therefore all that God has given us in this world has been given to us to help us fulfill these obligations of knowing, loving and serving Him.

The gift of hearing is a precious gift, it allows us to hear the rest of God's creatures. We are able to listen to the words of God as preached to us by God's priests. We are able to hear the beautiful songs of birds, the music of men's voices and instruments, etc.

But, all too often we choose to listen to evil things: to gossip, lies, slander, immodest/impure jokes, songs, etc. We choose not to hear the things of God or anything that will remind us of Him. Our precious gift of hearing is all too often used to distract us from the spiritual reality all around us.

Rather than remain in the stillness and silence where we can hear God speak to us through our conscience and in the beauty of the sounds He has given us, we all too often wish to fill our ears with the uninterrupted cacophony of the worldly lusts and passions of the popular "music", or the constant babbling of talk shows or "news" sources. We listen to TV programs, movies, or shows rather than spend a moment alone in the quiet of our conscience listening for the quiet but never ending sound of God's voice speaking to us through our conscience.

We have little time for contemplation and prayer because we fill up every available moment of our lives with useless or even worse, evil sounds. With our televisions, radios, tapes, cds, mp3s, cell phones, etc. we do not have a minute of an hour to hear God or to reflect on the one who has given us this gift that is so enjoyable to us.

We take God's gift and we forget all about Him. We turn around and even use His gifts to offend Him.

All that has been said about the gift of hearing can likewise be said of the gift of speech. Perhaps even more can be said of speech because our Lord tells us that it is not what enters a man the defiles him. What does defile him are the things that come out of him. "But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and it is they that defile a man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, immorality, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things that defile a man: but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man." (St. Matthew 15, 18-20)

It is bad enough that we abuse God's gift of hearing in listening to evil things, but then we tend to go even further and repeat these evil things and often add our own evils to those things which we speak. We often have little or no control over what we hear, but we have complete control over what we speak.

The itching ears that are always in search of some evil will never keep such things within itself. It seems to be burning with a desire of telling others what it has heard. It is said that: "curiosity is sister to indiscretion". If only we could let the evil die within us but no, we nurture and foster the evil by dwelling upon it and all too soon we set about telling others about it and thus becoming the occasion of sin for all those who listen to us.

It is time that we take responsibility for that which we hear and speak. Let us use these gifts ever mindful that God is watching (listening) to us to see what use we are making of them. He has given these gifts to us so that we could know, love and serve Him. We should be eager to hear the word of God especially as He speaks to us in the voice of His Church and in the voice of our consciences. We should use our voice to praise God, to pray to Him, and to call the world to know Him as He ought to be known, to love Him as He ought to be loved, and to serve Him as He ought to be served.

Let it also be said of us just as was spoken of the man in the Gospel today that he "spoke right". Amen.

Franciscan Benefactor Seraph Subscription Vocations Have you remembered God?